It was not pretty, but it goes into the books as a 4-1 win over Stoneham.

The Big Blue baseball team will take that win and get ready for the next round of the playoffs, coming up on Saturday against East Boston.

Junior righty Luke Marshall took the ball for Swampscott coach Jason Calichman’s team. He kept the Blue Man Group in the ballgame until the Big Blue finally busted out for four big runs off of Stoneham starter Brendan Dudman.

Dudman was pitching just as well as Marshall was throwing for his team for most of the time he was on the hill. Dudman allowed only singles to Swampscott’s Spencer Perkins and Louis Olivieri in bottom of the fourth inning.

The Spartans pushed across their only run in the top of the second, grabbing the lead when Eric Roberts trotted home on a hit by Cameron Gilmartin. Stoneham was struggling for base-runners, and that was because of the job Marshall was doing when he had the ball.

Calichman said his team does not win Thursday’s Division 3 North preliminary round game without a superb effort by his big junior righty, Marshall.

"Marsh was great. He had seven wins in the regular season. Now this is his eighth win today, in a playoff game," said Calichman. "You have to go a long way back to find a Swampscott pitcher with eight wins in a season. Luke pitched a great game for us.

"It was a struggle, but we were able to get a win. Now, we go to East Boston."

Marshall said that he just tried to keep his team in the game until the offense could get him some runs.

"I think that we always believed we could win the game, even though we were down in the second inning," Marshall said. "We just wanted to keep our heads in the game after they got their run, and keep trying to get some runs off of them.

"When we’re behind, I just try to go out and throw strikes. I just control what I can control when I’m pitching," Marshall said. "It was definitely a big confidence booster when we got those runs in the sixth and it helped push me through to finish the game."

Marshall and everyone else in the Big Blue baseball universe finally got a chance to get excited in the bottom of the sixth inning. With the home team down a run, things started to roll the Big Blue’s way.

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Sean Lahrizi worked Dudman for a walk and then the center fielder zipped in to second base on a wild pitch. Spencer Perkins was up next, and he reached on an error by the Spartan shortstop. That miscue allowed Lahrizi to advance over to third.

Perkins quickly moved to second base on another Dudman wild pitch. With one out and two Blue in scoring position, Stoneham decided to walk Louis Olivieri to load them up.

They hoped Ryan Graciale would hit into a force play. He did not, taking four balls, forcing in Lahrizi with the tying run.

First baseman A. J. Venuti was the next batter, and he broke the 1-1 tie with a sac fly to right that plated Perkins, giving Swampscott their first lead of the afternoon. With two on and two out, Swampscott left fielder David Peterson ripped a double that brought in Olivieri and pinch-runner Cam Thompson, who had entered the game to run for Graciale.

Peterson said his team just tried to keep it close until they could get some runs on the board.

"I don’t think that we were worried. We just tried to keep working until we could finally get some runs," Peterson said. "Luke was dominant, I think. That run they got shouldn’t even have come home. We just knew if we kept at it we could get some runs."

"They had a pretty good pitcher and it just took us a while to get some hits, which we finally did to win it," Peterson said.

The Big Blue, now 12-10 on the year, will head to East Boston to butt heads with the 18-2 Jets. Coach Calichman said it’s going to be another big game on Saturday.

"We’re glad we got this win, and certainly to be moving on. We’ll enjoy this win for a little, but then start getting ready for East Boston."